Page 7 - E-BOOK English

Preface

Soil resource data are vital for the formulation of national agricultural

policy, especially for the land use that suits its potential and sustainable
agricultural management. Therefore, soil database and maps are widely essential
for agricultural planning from a national to farm level.

In Thailand, Soil Taxonomy, according to the United States Department

of Agriculture (USDA), has been used in soil survey and classification. However,
in other Asian countries, Wold Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) has been
mainly applied for soil mapping. At present, it should be noted that there is a

continuous increase in research cooperation projects of ASEAN, such as Asian Soil

Partnership (ASP) and Global Soil Partnership (GSP). Hence, the formulation of soil
database and maps based on WRB is indeed crucial for mediating soil research
collaboration to be the same standard system in the world.

The creation of soil resource database and maps in Thailand based on

WRB consists of soil classification, structural characteristics, the rules of WRB
classification, comparison of soil mapping of Thailand according to WRB versus
USDA soil taxonomy, and preparation of Thai soil map in WRB system with the

scale of 1: 500,000. All the above data will be a part of World Soil Database,

which will further support the network of world soil associations, particularly for
international missions in cooperation projects and research.
This document is expected to benefit researchers and their governmental

and private organizations as well as general users for the applications associated

with a global partnership. The soil database and maps based on WRB may also
be used as supplementary information for the actions in international cooperation
projects and research suitably and efficiently.